This elegant evening gown, called "Herself," is an experiment. By coating the dress with a special concrete mixture (yes, concrete!), designer Catalytic Clothing claims it can, allegedly (stress: allegedly), suck up nitrogen oxide and CO from the surrounding air.

The air-purifying dress is a prototype—barely that, to be honest—but that hasn't stopped its designers from proclaiming it could clean up the environment simply by entering the room with a flourished twirl.

It's not all snake oil salesmanship though, as Discovery hypothesizes this hypothetical dress might utilize the same sunlight-absorbing properties found in Italian firm Italcementi's seemingly magical see-through concrete, seen here.

Building on that, there are other CO2-absorbing concretes on the market, so this isn't entirely without merit. Whether this tiny, sexy little number has enough of the stuff on its surface to actually reduce surrounding emissions by 65%, as claimed, obviously remains to be seen. [Discovery News]